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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24795037">The Bigger Picture</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Singing_Gazelle_56/pseuds/Singing_Gazelle_56'>Singing_Gazelle_56</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Black Dagger Brotherhood - J. R. Ward</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 10:54:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,302</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24795037</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Singing_Gazelle_56/pseuds/Singing_Gazelle_56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Black Dagger Brotherhood are on a mission to find the lesser who has been attacking women, Vishous feels like hes been here before.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Pen15 Challenge 12: A Grain of Truth</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Bigger Picture</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Hey, yo cop, wait up,” Rhage jogged down the hall to catch up with the human.  Butch O’Neil had been hanging out with the Brotherhood ever since Wrath married his half human queen, Beth.  Beth had been a reporter for the Caldwell Courier Journal.  Butch had only wanted to protect his friend when he thought she was getting involved with a group of murdering, sex-trafficking, drug lords.  Well, he had at least been right on the murder front at least.  At least they didn’t kill humans like he had originally thought.  Butch blended well with the band of warriors, besides, being human in the group had its advantages.  Like, you know, not being deathly allergic to the great ball of fire in the sky was a plus.<br/>
“Hollywood, my man,” Butch greeted him with a clap on the back.  “What’s doing?<br/>
“Another dead prostitute with her throat ripped open.  You in?”  Rhage explained.<br/>
“Abso!” Butch said.  He had been living in the Black Dagger Brotherhood’s mansion for a few months.  They were an elite group of vampires who protected the rest of the race against the Lessening Society, a group of soulless, undead assholes who preyed on the unsuspecting.  They had no code of ethics, as far as he could tell.  There was one rule in this war, and that was they weren’t to involve the humans.  Well, look who broke the one rule.  It was a tale that went as far back as the Brotherhood could remember.<br/>
“Excellent,” Rhage said, flashing his pearly whites, little points peeking out from under his lips.  His smile, dazzling blue eyes and gorgeous head of hair made him Hollywood beautiful.  He could have his pick of any female he wanted, human and vampire alike, Butch knew he had the reputation to back it, but as of late, he only had eyes for his shellen, Mary.  Despite his good looks and infectious personality, Rhage was a beast, quite literally, and downright dangerous.  Lord help anyone who stood in his way after he reached his limit, they were either dinner or a play toy.<br/>
“I’m gonna go change and armor up.  Meet you downstairs in ten.”  Butch nodded.<br/>
“Sounds like a plan. Tohr is going to give us the run down and divvy up downtown before we head out.”  With that, Rhage headed off to do his thing.  Ten minutes later, Butch made his way down stairs to the foyer where the rest of the Brotherhood was waiting for their orders.  He sauntered over to Vishous and Phury.  He shared a handshake and shoulder bump with each of the males.  V and Butch had bonded over their shared love of the Boston Red Sox and booze and became roommates in The Pit. His one gloved hand and his diamond white stare made him seem ominous.  The swirling black tattoos that ran over his right temple made him downright sinister.  He took a drag of his hand-rolled Turkish Smoke.<br/>
“What’s good?” V nodded.  Phury was not like Vishous in any way.  With his long multi-colored hair and his golden tanned skin, he looked like he had just stepped out of a GQ ad.  His appearance and demeanor screamed trustworthy.  Butch knew that there were more than enough females with fantasies of getting tangled in that mane of blonds, reds and browns, but Phury never batted an eye in the fairer sex’s direction.  It had nothing to do with his insecurity over his prosthetic leg, no, it was his vow of celibacy that saw to that.  The only thing that mattered to Phury more than life itself was his twin Zsadist.<br/>
Z lurked in the shadow in the corner of the room by himself.  That’s what he did, he lurked, and there was no other way to describe it.  Butch had imagined Z as a tiger pacing the length of his enclosure at the zoo. The only thing the brothers had in common was basic DNA.  While Phury was warm, sincere and honest, Z was menacing, cold and brutal.  He could have been equally as attractive as his twin if Fate hadn’t taken the wheel on that runaway train wreck.  If his skull trimmed hair and eyes didn’t give you the willies, the long scar that ran down the length of his face turning his mouth into a permanent sneer, definitely was.  The relationship between the brothers was something only they would ever understand.  Zsadist had been kidnapped as an infant, and Phury searched for over a century to find his lost twin, sacrificing everything along that yellow brick road.<br/>
“All right ladies and gentleman,” a male with short black hair entered the room.  Tohrment was the king appointed leader of the troops.  After Wrath had removed himself from the field, he took up the throne that was his by birthright.  Everything about Tohr demanded attention and respect, and damn it, if they didn’t respect the crap out of the male.  His intense dark blue eyes looked around the room at each brother.<br/>
“Now that I have your attention, let’s get down to business.  It is all hands on deck tonight.  We’re losing civilians at an alarming rate.  We know that the lessers are drugging them and torturing information about the Brotherhood from them.  This cannot continue.  I don’t know about you, but I can’t deliver another mangled body to the doorstep of his family.<br/>
“So with that being said, Vishous and Butch, you take the alleys near ZeroSum.  Phury and Z, my brothers, take Trade Street Rhage, you’re with me.  We’ll be close by and ready at a moment’s notice.  We get these assholes tonight, there is no other option, true?  Keep in contact and good luck out there.”  Zsadist, Phury, Rhage and Tohr poofed it out of there, dematerializing into downtown Caldwell New York.  Butch and V hopped into the black SUV, hit the highway and headed into the city.  Butch had seen many a dead bodies in his time working homicide for the Caldwell PD most of them had been over money or drugs or a million other motives.  But this was something altogether different, this was killing just to kill and he could not stomach that fact.  Typically, the time spent driving consisted of some heavy rap on rotation, but Butch wanted to pick the vampires brain.<br/>
“Hey, you ever see anything like this before?  Like to this magnitude?”  Butch asked, his South Boston accent prominent.<br/>
“I mean, it happens here and there.  Usually it’s the new recruits who come out all Billy Badass.  When they realize they can’t even get it up, they tend to get violent, usually it’s just a busted lip when the girl laughs or whatever, and very rarely do they get sliced and diced.  I’ve only seen this done once before.”  Vishous explained as he took a pull off his cigarette.</p>
<p>Whitechapel, London 1888…<br/>
The August heat hung on for dear life knowing that fall was just around the corner.  The air smelled like body odor and piss.  It only got worse the further East you went.  The East end was filled with the worst of the worst.  It was full of slaughterhouses, brothels and immigrants crammed into community houses like sardines.  To say the least, the standard of living was especially low in this part of town.  Vishous walked through Itchy Park, careful not to make eye contact with any of the bums sprawled out on the park benches.  His long, leather duster brushed the ground with each step he took.  In this environment, no one batted an eye to see someone walking around in the wee hours of the morning.  He made his way through the unlit park toward the common lodges.  The lessers loved to hang out there, and he was itching for a fight.  He carefully stepped over the homeless person in the street, he didn’t smell dead, and that was always a good sign.  As he walked around, he could hear squelching noises and moans drifting in behind them.  At least someone was having a good time, he thought.  A man stumbled out of the bar and vomited all over the sidewalk.  Humans were disgusting.  A warm breeze carried the smell of decaying trash and something sweet, sickeningly so.  A block away he heard a woman scream.<br/>
He dashed down the nearby ally and popped out on the other side just in time to catch the pasty bastard take off.  As he approached the woman, he looked down and saw a huge slash across her throat.  She choked on her own blood as it oozed out, soaking the cobblestone underneath her helpless body.  In a matter of moments, she was gone.  He chased after the lesser but to no avail, he was gone.  It would have been so much more helpful if there were more members in the Brotherhood.  The weeks turned into months after the death of the Nichols woman. Vishous seemed to be two steps behind the lesser, with no logical reason behind the senseless attacks.  He needed to come up with some kind of game plan.  He thought he had him when the lesser got brave and killed two girls in the same night.  Each murder had been worse than the last.  Each girl had her throat slashed open and various other markings, including missing organs.  Scotland Yard had been no help, they knew even less than V did.  They thought it was a medical professional, or someone who worked at the slaughterhouse.  Maybe in another life he had been, until the Omega stuck his claws in his back.  Their list of suspects was long and all wrong.  They had received letters from ‘the killer’, and for all Vishous knew, they could have been from the lesser, though that didn’t make any sense.<br/>
October had been a quiet month, maybe the lesser had moved on.   Or maybe he had been picked off with the others V had managed to catch and kill.  Though if that were the case, they never admitted to any of it.  These slayers were egotistical maniacs and almost always admitted to their handiwork.  Finally, the beginning of November held some promise.  Finally.<br/>
He had been around his usual route but halfway through he switched it up and took a walk down Dorset street.  Almost instantly, he smelled blood and that disgustingly sweet smell that accompanied any lesser.    He could see the glow of someone’s fire inside their rented room.  The window of the room had been cracked enough for Vishous to smell exactly which room the smell was coming from.  He stalked slowly down the poorly lit ally to the source of the smell.  He peered into the window and saw one of the most gruesome scenes he could imagine, and he had seen quite a bit in the Bloodletter’s camp of horrors.  The lesser stood up from work and looked down at his masterpiece.  Vishous backed away into the shadows when he saw the lesser was going to make his grand getaway, not today asshole.  He heard the window slide up slowly.  The pale haired killer climbed out of the window feet first.  When his feet hit the ground he slid the pane back into place and took one last look into the room.  He didn’t see the vampire creep up behind him.  Vishous spun the slayer around, punching him in the throat.  He took the opportunity to sweep his legs out from under him and pinned him to the ground.<br/>
“Got you, you pigeon-livered rat bag,” he hissed into the slayers ear.  The response he got in return sent a shiver down his spine.  The lesser laughed maniacally.  V punched him the face breaking his nose and splitting his lip, but he just continued to laugh.  “What is all this for?”<br/>
“You’d never understand,” the lesser said, spitting blood the color of tar into Vishous’s face.  V responded with another punch in the face, caving in an orbital socket.  The slayer let out a small groan of pain, but smiled through it.  “It’s all part of the bigger picture.”<br/>
“Bigger picture?  What the hell is that supposed to mean?”  The lesser careened his head into Vishous’s.  V reached up under his duster and pulled out his dagger, planting it deep into the chest where its heart should have been.  He twisted and pulled it, sending the lesser back to his maker.  He stood up and looked down at the puddle of ink that now lay where the lesser had just been.  He moved to the window, but there was nothing he could do to help the woman, or what was left of her.  From what he could see, her throat had been slit like all the others had been.  The skin had been missing from most of her body, it looked as though her intestines had been removed as well as some other vital organs.  They were arranged around her body in a meticulous way.  This poor woman never stood a chance.  He had his own thoughts about females, but she at least deserved to be found and put to rest.<br/>
“Murder,” he called out into the early morning hours.  “Murder!  Murder!”  He dematerialized out of the ally and back to the warehouse he was hiding out in during the daylight hours.  He had done what he could.  He had only wished he had stopped the slayer before he murdered the women.</p>
<p>Present day…<br/>
The Brotherhood patrolled their respective areas throughout downtown Caldwell.  The night was relatively quiet, but it was still early, plenty of time for stupid to rear its ugly head.  His cell vibrated in his pocket.  It was a group text from Tohr.<br/>
'All quiet here, hbu?' It read.<br/>
'Crickets,'  Phury replied.  It looked like they weren’t going to catch this fucker after all.  Butch nudged Vishous in the rib and nodded down the ally.  A shadow dashed behind a dumpster.  As the duo approached they could hear sniffling behind it.  Butch crouched down and reached behind it, pulling a woman out.  She had a cut across her cheek and she was covered in filth.  She reached up with her free hand and wiped away her snots.<br/>
“Marie-Therese?”  Butch asked in disbelief.  “What happened?”<br/>
“Butch,” She sniffled. “I don’t know what happened.  I was in the back of the club with a John I was working over when some douche grabs me around the waist and throws me to the ground.  The guy I was with tried to help, God, I don’t think he’s alive anymore.  I ran away as quickly as I could, then I found you gentlemen.”<br/>
“Butch, bring her back to ZeroSum.  Make sure she’s safe and text the guys.  I’m going to go find this son of a bitch, true?”  V said.<br/>
“Already done, my brother.”  He sent out his mass text and held Marie-Therese protectively.  Almost instantly Tohrment and Rhage appeared in the ally.<br/>
“Z and Phury have their own thing going on at the moment so it’s just us.”  Tohr said.<br/>
“She came down the alley from the club so the scum can’t be too far away,” V explained.  “Flank around the building, we’ll try and cut him off.”<br/>
The other males went in different directions while V made his way deeper into the ally.  Among the trash and other various smells that lingered in the darkness, the sweet smell of baby powder overpowered them all.  He was close, V could almost taste him.  He ungloved his hand and proceeded with caution.  He heard the slayer before he saw him, he heard his cackling laughter echo around him.  He could see Tohr and Hollywood coming down the opposite end of the brick hallway.  The lesser lunged at Vishous.  He reached out and caught him around the throat with his bare hand.  The pale skin of the albino man began to sizzle.  The slayer cried out in pain.<br/>
“That’s right asshole, hurts don’t it?”  The lesser reached up and tried to pry V’s hands off of him.<br/>
“Vishous,” Tohr shouted.  He let go of the lesser with a toss to the ground.  He fell in a heap and backed himself into the dark corner.  Rubbing his charred skin, he began to laugh.<br/>
“Don’t know what you’re laughing at ass hat,” Rhage kicked a rock at him.  The slayer began to stand up.<br/>
“I’m laughing because no matter what you do to me, it’s all part of the bigger picture,” The lesser spit a mouthful of blood at the ground.<br/>
“What bigger picture?” Tohr pressed.  The lesser responded by pulling out a knife from his pocket.  He plunged it into the space his heart should have been.  His lifeless body fell to the ground with a thump and slowly began to disintegrate into ash.<br/>
“What the fuck was that about?”  Butch asked coming up behind the warriors.<br/>
“One less lesser in the world in my opinion,” Rhage shrugged.  Vishous shook his head in disbelief.  The Brotherhood and Butch used the emergency back entrance to ZeroSum and sat in the booth reserved specifically for them.  A minimally clothed waitress walked over to the table, clearly expecting more than just a drink order.  She brought it over a moment later making extra work at showing off her assets, just in case someone changed their mind.  As V drank his Goose, he couldn’t help but replay what the lesser had said?  Bigger picture?  What were these bastards playing at?  With the lesser gone there was no way of knowing until it happened.  The only thing they could do was get the training center up and running and train the new recruits as soon as possible.<br/>
“Vishous,” He felt a hard nudge in his ribs.<br/>
“Hmm,” He answered.<br/>
“Where are you?”  Tohr questioned.  His blue eyes drilled him.<br/>
“Right here,” V shrugged.<br/>
“Physically, yes.  Mentally, you’re on some other planet.  We’ve been trying to get your attention for like five minutes,”<br/>
“Oh, it’s nothing, man.  Just something that shit stain said.  It reminded me of something back in London.”  V took a swig of his drink.<br/>
“What do you mean?”  Phury asked.<br/>
“When he said that bit about the ‘bigger picture’, there was a slayer back in the late 1880s who had said the same thing.”  He looked around, clearing they wanted to know more about what had happened.  “There was a lesser who had been slitting the throats of the working girls, when I finally caught him he said the same thing about it all being part of the bigger picture.  I don’t know, man, just seems a little weird that after all this time this happens.”<br/>
Someone let out a low whistle.  Their eyes all shifted around the table to one another.  No one knew how to respond to this kind of information.  Butch swirled his glass, causing the ice to collide with the glass around it.  The lights bumped to the music in the background.  Tohrment cleared his throat.<br/>
“We’ll be vigilant.  We’ll train harder.  We’ll get the training center open as soon as possible, and we’ll train them hard too.  The more fighters we have the better.  They’ll be able to protect other civilians if need be.  Clearly, whatever they have planned is geared towards us.  I won’t let any innocent bystanders get caught in the crossfire.  No more, true?”  Tohr declared.<br/>
“Here, here,” Rhage said, raising his glass.  The other warriors followed suit in solidarity.  To Vishous, this felt like a whole new chapter in the war on the Lessening Society.  A new chapter that didn’t look like it had a very good outcome.  He caught glimpses of his brothers and others in undesired situations.  There was nothing he could do about that, except pray to the Scribe Virgin for a miracle, but he knew better than that.</p>
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